Transcript Agriculture and Nutrition Linkages

Gender, Agriculture, and Nutrition
Linkages
TOPS Food Security Meeting
Maputo
September 2011
Nutrition and GDP
Nutrition and food consumption issues are critical to sustainably
reduce poverty and decrease maternal and child mortality.
Up to 3% GDP LOSSES due to
undernutrition
World Bank 2006
2
What Supports Child Nutrition?
Access
to food
Improved
maternal
and
child-care
practices
Access to
water/
sanitation
/hygiene
and basic
health
services
Agriculture and
Nutrition Pathways
Sold at
market
Non-food
cash crops
Livestock,
fish, nontimber forest
products
Food
crops
Health
Care
Income
Agricultural
processing
Nutritional
status
Food
Meal
preparation
Dietary
Intake
Kept for
household
Assets & Resources
International Center for Research on Women
Human
Capital
NUTRITION-SENSITIVE AGRICULTURE
REACH, Sierra Leone
PRINCIPLES
• Agriculture affects nutrition outcomes indirectly
It works through effects on the underlying causes of
undernutrition: access to food and food production,
health and care, and most directly through the effects
of income and prices on household food security
• Nutrition is both an input for and an outcome of
agricultural productivity
• The appropriate actions will be identified through an
analysis of determinants of food insecurity/
undernutrition
• Plan multisectorally and implement sectorally
What is USAID doing to link Agriculture
and Nutrition?
Feed the Future
Agriculture
Programs
Improved access
to diverse and
quality foods
Global Health Initiative
Nutrition
Improved
nutrition-related
behaviors
including hygiene
Health
Services
Improved
utilization of
maternal and
child health and
nutrition
services 7
Key Linkages:
Gender, Nutrition, and Agriculture
Focus on women because of their
role as care givers, producers,
processors of food
Nutrition and health protocols:
Customs detrimental to child health
and development
Gender approach: involving men
Empowerment of women with
knowledge and skills to prevent or
reverse malnutrition, capacity to care
for their children, access to technical
resources to improve food production
and/or food processing.
• Increase year-round supply of nutrient rich foods
• Address gaps in sector-specific efforts, such as production or
income gains that fail to translate into improved nutritional status.
• Reduce women’s resource constraints by improving their access to
productive technologies such as seeds and extension services;
• Identify characteristics of different crop varieties that may be
preferred more by men or women
• Provide extension support to enhance uptake of the preferred
varieties
• Focus on developing technologies that increase productivity in parts
of the food chain that fall largely within women’s domain
Women’s Role
Insight
Interventions
Food producer
Women and men equally
contribute to household
food supply and availability
•women’s participation in
nutrition-oriented
agricultural technology
development
• enhancing production
systems associated with
women
• addressing production
and post-production
constraints
Income-earning farmers
Women significantly
(re)invest their income in
food and nutrition
•Gender-responsive
market chain development
•agri-food value chain
development to include
nutrition
• entrepreneurship and
business development for
high-nutrition value chains
Health/nutrition
caretakers
Women are key decisionmakers and stewards of
household food and
nutrition security
•Introducing agri-food
strategies within broader
nutrition interventions
Nutritionally vulnerable
group
Women’s nutritional status
determines their productive
and reproductive roles,
and affects intra-household
nutrition/health
•developing agriculture
innovations targeting
nutritional issues affecting
women
• Introducing strategies for
enhanced access to
healthcare and education
services
As partners with men
Household and community
dynamics require social
learning and collective
action by men and women
Understanding and
overcoming social norms
and political economies of
agri-nutrition systems